


Shining Knight

by TeamTired



Series: The 120 Pairing Challenge [1]
Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Abuse, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-10
Updated: 2012-07-10
Packaged: 2017-11-09 13:15:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/455852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeamTired/pseuds/TeamTired
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kanaya turns to Dave for advice and comfort.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shining Knight

It’s hard to have a girlfriend who’s a Seer, it’s hard and nobody understands...  
  
At least, almost nobody. The constant nosiness, the fights about thoughts and future actions and alternate timelines gets tiring after a while. After six months on the meteor, Kanaya is sick of Rose still obsessing about her Class and Aspect, still fretting about the Grimdarkness she knows lives inside her. Though Kanaya pities Rose more than she’s ever pitied someone before, it’s difficult to keep pitying someone when they’re a bad day away from becoming the bastion of an eldrich monstrosity.   
  
And she’s tried everything: hobbies, projects, countless distractions, not to mention a cornucopia of physical liaisons. At the end of the day, Kanaya still feels second fiddle to the Horrorterrors, always whispering their dark secrets into the ear of her Seer of Light.   
  
It wouldn’t be so bad if Rose wasn’t so powerful, so dangerous. The fury of a god combined with the wisdom and inscrutable horror of a thousand more is nothing to play with, Kanaya has learned this lesson well.   
  
She remembers an incident two months ago, their worst fight yet. She remembers how one of her own thoughts, read wrong, resulted in an enraged Rose. She remembers how the verbal fight turned into something much more physical, much more caliginous. Words weren’t enough for Rose, not for long. Kanaya took one step and Rose just...broke. She remembers how the grimdarkness flowed out of Rose’s eyes, engulfing her completely. She remembers how Rose spoke, twisting and corrupting the very air she breathed. She remembers how Rose lost control, and the pain from a single errant tentacle of darkness, how it burned against her Rainbow Drinker flesh.   
  
She’ll never forget the fear and hate she felt for Rose at that moment, and it doesn’t take the permanently blackened flesh on her left arm to remind her of how incredibly deadly Rose can be in the wrong mood.   
  
But she can’t leave Rose, can she? She knows that underneath Rose’s haughty and sarcastic exterior, beyond the insincere wordplay and suspicious eyes, there lies a fragile girl, a girl who needs Kanaya, who wants her. That is the girl she’s grown to know the past few months, that is the girl that Kanaya pities, the girl who hates and fears the darkness just as much as Kanaya does.   
  
But for all her sense of duty and true pity for Rose, it’s still hard sometimes, it’s hard and nobody understands, except Dave Strider.  
  
When she first met Dave, she discounted him as nothing more than an avenue to understand Rose, another human, one who could teach her things, things Rose wouldn’t tell her.   
  
But time has told another story. Some nights he’s the only one who will listen, the only one she knows will understand the fear that comes with dating someone who predicts and guides the future with such unerring accuracy, the only one who shares her constant worry that her actions are not entirely her own. The lines of manipulation and coercion become blurred with time, much to Kanaya’s occasional terror.   
  
She’s been spending more time with Dave as of late. She tells Rose that nothing is going on, that she just wants to learn more about humans and human culture before they arrive at their destination, and that it would help to get a second perspective. She knows Rose doesn’t believe her, but Kanaya can’t help that.   
  
It’s not hard to see the similarities between Rose and Dave: their penchant for language, their initial coldness, their lithe frames.   
  
But it takes time to see the differences. Where Rose is suspicious, Dave is trusting. Where Rose is fragile, Dave is strong. Where Rose is unpredictable, Dave is dependable.   
  
Their conversations inevitably turn to Rose, who Dave knows best of all. He tells her it’s not Kanaya’s fault, that Rose has taken on a great burden Dave’s not sure she can bear.   
  
She trusts Dave, in a way she could never trust Rose. He patiently listens to the secrets that Rose has already extracted with her meddling and fussing. She grows comfortable with him, close to him.   
  
One night, she grows tired after a long talk with Dave. She leans against him, her head on his muscled arm. He reaches his arm around her and puts it on her waist, feeling the soothing glow of her skin even through her dress. It would be easy for her to fall asleep like this, almost as easily as if she was still sitting in her recuperacoon.   
  
Kanaya hurries to Rose and sleep minutes later, but she feels something growing in her, something red and lovely.   
  
A few days later, she meets Dave in one of the labs that has been modified to serve as a dojo of sorts. Across the room, Dave has set up target and dummies. Kanaya watches as he darts across the room, seemingly teleporting from place to place. In a matter of moments,  the targets have been reduced to nothing.   
  
She can’t help herself from clapping, just a little. She’s amazed at the paradox he seems to present: the cold unflinching hardness of the blade combined with the warm elegance and smoothness of the swordsman. He flashes her a smile and takes a minute to set up another group of targets.   
  
This time, he’s decided to show a little. He leaps into the middle of the room, and then disappears. A moment later he reappears as six Daves, each leaping in a different direction. Kanaya watches as each Dave in turn destroys their target and disappears, leaving only one Dave standing next to her. Though she understands the concept of the closed loop, the idea that each Dave is the Dave going through the same moment in time for a different target, it’s hard not to betray how impressed she is at his total control, his perfect harmony of mind and body.   
  
He’s glad to impress her, as he knows how difficult that is to do. Plus there’s something rewarding about performing for an audience. Not much point in showmanship with nobody to show.   
  
She reaches out to touch him and feels his chest: hard muscle, well defined and unyielding, another tool for a craftsman of battle.   
  
In that moment she cannot help herself. She falls into his arms and he’s there to catch her, to hold her. She feels safe and secure with him. He removes his shades and she looks into his eyes, red like Terezi’s.  
  
But unlike Terezi’s, they have a kindness to them, an understanding and a promise.   
  
A promise of protection and love.   
  
He is her Knight. 


End file.
